C++ for Lazy Programmers

Will Briggs, PhD is a professor of computer science at the University of Lynchburg in Virginia.  He has 20+ years of experience teaching C++, 12 of them using earlier drafts of this book, and about as many years teaching other languages including C, LISP, Pascal, PHP, PROLOG, and Python.  His primary focus is teaching of late while also active in research in artificial intelligence.

The text is around 120,000 words long.  Most chapters take one week each to cover in a standard (3- or 4-hour) college class.  It covers two semesters, with a few extra chapters at the end for those wanting to go further.



Chapter 1-13 are for semester one, covering variables, constants, types including enumeration types, control structures, functions, standard I/O, programming style, algorithm development, and the debugger.  The climax of the sequence is Chapter 12, Building Your Own Arcade Game.  As it stands now, all but Chapter 13 use a graphics library for whiz-bang.



Chapter 14-23 are for the second semester, covering character arrays, pointers and dynamic memory, classes, inheritance, templates including the Standard Template Library, exceptions, virtual functions, and elementary data structures (strings, stacks, queues, vectors, and lists).  The climax of this sequence is the construction of linked lists.  Only Chapter 21 uses graphics -- the rest use standard console I/O, which is essential before going on to subsequent classes in the major.



Chapters 24-29 are optional extras:  namespaces, construction of libraries, history of C++, bit twiddling, sstream, shared_ptr, the C language, and other topics.



Appendices cover setting up the graphics library on your machine, escape sequences, keywords, standard libraries, g++ debugger commands, and graphics-library functions.




Introduction. 1-1





1        Getting started. 1-9



1.1         A simple program.. 1-9



1.2         Creating an SSDL project 1-12



1.3         Shapes, and the functions that draw them.. 1-27



1.4         consts and colors. 1-35



1.5         Text 1-37



First week.



Prominent examples from this chapter:  a drawing of a bug's head; a neatly printed poem.



 



2        Images and sound. 2-43



2.1         Images, and changing window characteristics. 2-43



2.2         Multiple images together 2-48



2.3         Sound. 2-51



Second week.



Example:  a slide show (Your yard gnome's travel pics).



 



3        Math: types, operations, consts, and math functions. 3-55



3.1         Variables, constants, enums as constants. 3-55



3.2         Math operators. 3-57



3.3         Mathematical functions. 3-61



Third week.



Examples:  diver on a diving board; a 5-pointed star.



 



 



4        Mouse, and if. 4-67



4.1         Mouse functions, and variables associated. 4-67



4.2         if.. 4-69



4.3         Boolean variables. 4-73



4.4         Where Waldo is:  using mouse input 4-75



Fourth week.



Example:  Where's Waldo? (pending approval from Waldo's author).



 



5        Loops and text input 5-79



5.1         Text input 5-79



5.2         while and do-while. 5-81



5.3         for-loops. 5-85



5.4         The char type, and cctype.. 5-90



5.5         switch.. 5-94



Fifth week.



Examples:  the Monty Hall problem; menus.



 



6        Algorithms and the development process. 6-97



6.1         The Biscuit Algorithm, or how planning ahead reduces your workload. 6-97



6.2         Writing a program, from start to finish. 6-100



 



Sixth week.



 



 



7        Functions.  Example:  a multi-panel comic. 7-106



7.1         Functions that return values. 7-106



7.2         Functions that return nothing. 7-110



7.3         Why have functions, anyway?. 7-117



Still sixth week.



Example:  a multi-frame comic (illustrates code reuse).



 



8        Functions (cont'd).  Example:  various random functions. 8-126



8.1         Boolean functions. 8-126



8.2         Random numbers. 8-127



8.3         Multiple values provided:  using & parameters. 8-133



8.4         Identifier scope  8-138
8.5         A final note on algorithms. 8-140



Seventh and eighth weeks.



Examples:  various functions using random number generation.



 



9        Using the debugger (optional, recommended) 9-141



9.1         Example:  drawing a flag. 9-141



9.2         A debugger session in Visual Studio. 9-145



9.3         Debugging g++ programs with ddd and gdb. 9-150



9.4         Other common debugging techniques. 9-156



 



    Ninth week.



 



 



10     enum and arrays. 10-159



10.1       Enumeration types. 10-159



10.2       Arrays. 10-160



10.3       Multidimensional arrays. 10-166



Tenth week.



Examples: checkers, tic-tac-toe.



 



11     animation with structs and sprites. 11-173



11.1       struct.. 11-173



11.2       Making a movie with struct and while.. 11-176



11.3       Sprites. 11-182



Eleventh week.



Examples:  bouncing balls; a video aquarium.



 



12     Building your own arcade game:  input, collisions, and putting it all together 12-188



12.1       Input for arcade games:  determining input states. 12-188



12.2       Input for arcade games:  events. 12-190



12.3       Latency. 12-191



12.4       Collisions. 12-194



12.5       The big game. 12-195



Twelfth and thirteenth weeks.



Example:  the student's own game.



 



13     Standard I/O and file operations. 13-204



13.1       Standard I/O.. 13-204



13.2       Compiling in Visual C++. 13-205



13.3       Compiling with g++. 13-209



13.4       Treating cin and cout as files (optional) 13-210



13.5       File I/O using file names (optional) 13-216



Fourteenth week.



Examples:  various programs reading/writing text files.  Except for Chapter 21 (virtual functions), this and subsequent chapters use standard console I/O, not the SSDL graphics library. 



This chapter likely ends the first semester, so if students are going into a class with a different textbook, they are ready for the console I/O it will certainly require them to know.







14     Character arrays and dynamic memory (pointers) 14-221



14.1       Character arrays. 14-221



14.2       Dynamic allocation of arrays. 14-224



14.3       Using the * notation. 14-228



Second semester, first week.



Examples:  C's string functions, written as examples or offered as exercises; code with new and delete



 



15     Classes:  the basics. 15-232



15.1       A simple class. 15-232



15.2       Constructors. 15-235



15.3       const objects, const member functions... 15-239



15.4       ...and const parameters. 15-241



15.5       Multiple constructors. 15-241



15.6       Default parameters for code reuse. 15-244



15.7       Date program (so far) 15-245



Second week.



Examples:  the Date class; the student's own Time class.



 



16     Classes, continued. 16-248



16.1       inline functions for efficiency. 16-248



16.2       Access functions. 16-249



16.3       static members, and other members of the entire class (optional) 16-250



16.4       Separate compilation and include files. 16-252



16.5       Backing up a multi-file project 16-256



16.6       Separate compilation in Microsoft Visual C++. 16-257



16.7       Separate compilation in g++. 16-259



16.8       Final Date program.. 16-264



Third week.



Examples:  the Date class; the student's own Time class, continued.



 



17     Operators, and destructors. 17-268



17.1       The basic string class -- and default arguments. 17-268



17.2       Destructors. 17-270



17.3       Binary and unary operators. 17-271



17.4       Assignment operators and *this.. 17-273



17.5       Arithmetic operators. 17-275



17.6       [] and () operators. 17-279



17.7&^> and <<: operators that aren't class members. 17-281



17.8       ++ and -- 17-283



17.9       Some fun with constructors. 17-284



17.10    ...the final String class. 17-285



17.11    #include .. 17-291



Fourth and fifth weeks.



Examples:  a String class; the student's own Point or Fraction class.



 



18     Exceptions, recursion, and O notation. 18-292



18.1       Exceptions. 18-292



18.2       Recursion (optional) 18-300



18.3       Algorithm analysis and O-notation (optional) 18-303



Sixth week.



Examples:  a Stack class; a factorial function; binary and linear search.



 



19     Classes, continued:  inheritance. 19-309



19.1       The basics of inheritance. 19-309



19.2       Inheritance as a concept 19-312



19.3       Calling parent class constructors. 19-314



19.4       Inheritance and destructors. 19-314



19.5       protected sections. 19-314



19.6       Types of inheritance. 19-315



19.7       An inheritance hierarchy. 19-319



Seventh and eighth weeks.



Examples:  card games.



 



20     Template functions and classes. 20-335



20.1       template functions. 20-335



20.2       The Vector class. 20-338



20.3       Making Vector a template. 20-341



20.4       Unusual class templates (optional) 20-345



20.5       #include .. 20-346



Ninth week.



Example: the Vector class



 



21     Multiple inheritance and virtual functions. 21-347



21.1       Multiple inheritance. 21-347



21.2       Virtual functions. 21-348



Tenth and eleventh weeks.



Example:  a Shape class.  This uses the SSDL library.



 



22     Linked lists. 22-359



22.1       What lists are, and why have them.. 22-359



22.2       T List::operator[] (int index) const; 22-363



22.3       ->:  a bit of syntactic sugar 22-366



22.4       A bit more friendly syntax:  pointers as conditions. 22-367



22.5       List::~List(); 22-367



22.6       The linked list class. 22-368



22.7       #include .. 22-371



Twelfth week.



Example:  the List class.



 



23     The Standard Template Library (STL) 22-371



22.1       Iterators, and auto (C++ 11 on) 22-371



22.2       pair.. 22-375



22.3       algorithm, and functions using iterators. 22-375



22.4       Function pointers and objects. 22-376



Thirteenth week.



Example:  an extension of the List class to use iterators.



 



This likely ends the second semester.  If there is extra time, the instructor may choose to add the chapter on C, sstream, iomanip, or some other topic from remaining chapters.  Otherwise, remaining chapters are extras for those who want to go further.









24     Building bigger projects. 23-377



23.1       Namespaces. 23-377



23.2       Conditional compilation. 23-378



23.3       Libraries. 23-378



 



 



25     History. 24-382



24.1       SIMULA 67. 24-382



24.2       Smalltalk. 24-382



24.3       What "object-oriented" is. 24-383



24.4       C.. 24-383



24.5       C++. 24-383



 



 



26     Esoterica (recommended) 25-385



25.1       iomanip. 25-385



25.2       Bit twiddling:  &, |, and ~. 25-389



25.3       sstream:  strings that are I/O streams. 25-389



25.4       Command-line arguments. 25-392



25.5       Exceptions: more detail 25-396



25.6       Template specialization. 25-399



25.7       shared_ptr (C++ 11 on) 25-400



25.8       cast operators. 25-401



25.9       Saving run time with move constructors/move = (C++ 11 on) 25-402



25.10    Multiple inheritance with virtual base classes. 25-402



 



 



27     Esoterica (not so recommended) 26-404



26.1       Microsoft Windows help. 26-404



26.2       Unix help. 26-405



26.3       friends, and why you shouldn't have any. 26-405



26.4       pImpls, iosfwd, precompiled headers, and other afflictions. 26-408



26.5       Precompiled headers. 26-411



 



 



28     C.. 27-412



27.1       Compiling C.. 27-412



27.2       #define. 27-413



27.3       stdio.h. 27-414



27.4       Parameter passing with *.. 27-421



27.5       static global declarations (optional) 27-423



Examples:  programs using C's stdio functions (printf, sscanf, etc.).



 



29     Moving on with SDL.. 28-424



28.1       A basic program in SDL.. 28-426



 



 



Appendices



A.     Setting up SDL and SSDL.. 427



B.      Making your own SSDL project 429



C.      Basic types. 429



D.     Escape sequences. 430



E.      C++ keywords. 430



F.      Operators. 432



G.     ASCII codes. 433



H.     Standard libraries. 435



I.       Common gdb commands. 438



J.       SSDL reference. 440



 



Index  448



 



References. 455